Washington: An object, which was spotted in the sky by several people across Pike County last week but has still not been identified, was captured on pictures and videos by a local astronomer through his telescope.
“It wasn’t anything I recognized. Definitely not an airplane, and I’ve never seen a helicopter that looked like that,” Wsaz.com quoted Allen Epling as saying.
Sightings of the object have been reported in Kentucky, Virginia, and Tennessee, but it has yet to be identified.
According to Epling, even with his background in astronomy, it is unlike anything he has ever seen.
“Looked like two fluorescent bulbs, side by side, parallel, shining very brightly,” Epling said.
“It would get so bright they would seem to merge, and you could see it very clearly with the naked eye. Then it would dim down almost invisible,” he said.
Even stranger, the object barely moved. It hovered in the same area for more than two hours.
“I don’t understand how it could stay up there in one place. There was no sign of propellers or any kind of proportion system. No gas is coming out,” Epling said.
While police in the area say they received a handful of calls about the object but were unable to locate it, airport officials say they do not have any records of aircraft flying through the area at that time.
Epling says his best guess is that it is some sort of balloon, but his research has not turned up anything similar. And he says it had to be hovering at an altitude of at least 100,000 feet.
“Contradictory, if it’s a balloon, how could it maintain its structure at that altitude?” Epling added.
ANI
First Published: Saturday, October 27, 2012, 14:56